News
Professor David Coates (1946-2018)
It is with great sadness that we must report that Professor David Coates passed away yesterday after a short illness. He was 71 years old.
David had held the Worrell Chair in Anglo-American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina since 1999, having previously been a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Manchester. His work on British and American politics and political economy has been voluminous over a period of many years and is set out in full on his website at www.davidcoates.net/
David was a great friend of SPERI. He blogged regularly on SPERI Comment and attended several SPERI conferences and workshops. He also drew on SPERI research in much of his later writing. His last visit to SPERI took place on 14 May this year when he spoke engagingly and optimistically about the challenges facing progressive politics at the launch of his latest major study, entitled Flawed Capitalism: The Anglo-American Condition and its Resolution (Agenda Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018).
Our sincerest condolences go to his wife, Eileen, and all the members of his Anglo-American family.
NEW EVENT: World Food Day Keynote Lecture by Professor Jennifer Clapp
On Tuesday 16 October 2018 – World Food Day – the University of Sheffield Sustainable Food Futures (SheFF) group, SPERI and the Department of Politics are delighted to be co-hosting a Keynote Lecture by the world-leading esteemed food, environment and International Relations scholar Professor Jennifer Clapp (School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Canada). The lecture is free to attend and open to the public.
Click here to register your place
‘Power, Politics and Justice in the World Food Economy’ – Professor Jennifer Clapp
Recent mergers among some of the world’s largest agrifood companies underline the extent to which just a handful of giant firms have come to dominate the global food system. As the power of transnational agrifood corporations has grown, debates have intensified over what it means for efforts to promote more just and sustainable food systems around the world.
This lecture explores how corporate power in the global food system is being expressed in new ways, its implications for world food security and sustainability, and the politics of reshaping global food governance in response.
Jennifer Clapp is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability. Her research focuses on global governance issues at the intersection of food security, the global economy, and the environment.
Date: Tuesday 16 October
Location: The Diamond, Lecture Theatre 2
Time: 5.00-7.00pm
The keynote lecture will be followed by audience discussion and a drinks reception from 6.30pm in The Diamond foyer.
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships – call for applications
The British Academy has announced details of their Postdoctoral Fellowships scheme. The Fellowships are a three-year award made to an annual cohort of outstanding early career researchers.
We would like to invite applications from talented researchers working in political economy to apply to the scheme in order to join our research community at SPERI in 2019.
If you would like to apply for a Fellowship to be based at SPERI please send a two-page CV and a one-page research proposal for the Fellowship to SPERI’s co-directors Colin Hay, Genevieve LeBaron and Adam Leaver by August 31st 2018. The co-directors will then decide whether to put forward applicants for the scheme from SPERI.
Full details of the scheme can be found at https://www.britac.ac.uk/british-academy-postdoctoral-fellowships
Outline Stage 2018-19
- Scheme Opens – 22 August 2018
- Deadline for Applicants (incl. Referee Statement & Organisation Approval) – 17 October 2018
- Result of Outline Stage Announcement – January 2019
Second Stage 2018-19
- Scheme Opens – 23 January 2019
- Deadline for Applicants 20 February 2019
- Result of Second Stage Announcement – End of May 2019
Eligibility
- Applicants must be supported by the UK host institution in which they wish to hold the Fellowship
- Applicants must be within three years of the award of a doctorate (this means being awarded via a viva voce examination between 1 April 2016 and 1st April 2019).
- Applicants in the 2018-19 competition awarded a PhD before 1 April 2016 can apply given extentuating circumstances, such as through illness or parental/care giving duties. Any potential exemptions should be discussed with the Research Funding Team.
- Applicants must be either a UK/EEA national, or have completed a doctorate at a UK university. Applicants who do not fall into one of these categories must demonstrate a ‘strong prior association’ with the UK academic community. This is typically gained through having been employed in a temporary capacity at a UK university for at least 12 months.
New vacancy: Professorial Research Fellow at SPERI
SPERI is seeking to appoint a new Professorial Research Fellow to join our team. Full details about the new job can be found here.
Overview
We are seeking candidates with an outstanding research profile and a track record of influencing think tanks and government policy making.
The Fellowship will commence in September 2018 and runs to 31 January 2021. During the period of your fellowship you will focus exclusively on developing SPERI’s research profile through development of an innovative research agenda, substantially contributing to the development of SPERI as a leading international institute in the study of political economy, pursuing opportunities for high profile external grants, producing an array of high quality publications and demonstrating the impact of your research through engagement with think tanks and policy makers.
We will look to provide you with opportunities to apply your experience and skills, through the leadership of a research theme and wider leadership role.
Closing date for applications: 30th July 2018
For informal enquiries about this job please contact SPERI co-director Professor Adam Leaver on a.leaver@sheffield.ac.uk
Applications are made through the University of Sheffield’s online jobs portal
Localising pension fund investments – new SPERI report published today
SPERI today publishes a new report by Dr Craig Berry (Reader at Manchester Metropolitan University) which explores the prospect of UK pension funds localising their investment strategies. The report ‘Localising pension fund investments; Engaging with stakeholders, overcoming the barriers’ is the culmination of a project, funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, UK policy-makers have looked to pension funds to contribute to an investment-led economic recovery. However, there have been few substantive policy changes to support this agenda, and little attention has been given to the prospect of pension funds localising their investment strategies. The project investigated the reasons behind this and explored the potential for local authority pension funds and private sector pension funds to contribute to localisation in investment practice. Dr Craig Berry, Tom Hunt and Dr Adam Barber worked on the SPERI project which you can read more about here.
The project findings are drawn from new SPERI research and from a series of seminars held in late 2017 and 2018 with stakeholders and experts in three English city-regions: Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham. Participants included local government officials, economists, local business and civil society leaders, and finance and investment professionals (including pensions industry representatives).
The project report makes a range of suggestions for policy and practice.
Central government:
- A genuine, place-based public investment programme should be established by the Treasury, which pension funds can cohere around.
- Greater thought is required, by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, about the implications of pooling for locally-oriented investment strategies among local authority pension funds.
- Both departments need to consider whether metro-mayors have sufficient powers and capacity to contribute to the localisation agenda, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy needs to consider whether the British Business Bank could engage systematically with pension funds.
- The Department for Work and Pensions needs to ensure that pensions regulation (such as valuation cycles) does not discourage local investments, reconsider whether the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) can further localise its investment strategy, and explore how the barriers to collective defined contribution provision can be overcome.
Local government:
- There is scope for metro-mayors and combined authorities to think more strategically about the operation of local authority pension funds. Mayors should also be looking to mediate between private sector pension funds and potential investees in the local economy, and if necessary push for greater devolution of fiscal powers to fulfil this function effectively.
Large employers:
- Large employers need to take their role as local anchor institutions seriously – and this role should be reflected in their pensions practice. They should also seek to survey members more extensively on investment preferences – an initiative NEST could also undertake.
- More generally, all relevant stakeholders (including trade unions) should consider whether local investment strategies might be best realised away from the formal processes of pensions saving.
The project also suggests that priorities for further research in this area include:
- Developing a ‘census’ of the pensions capital created in the private sector across different localities and regions, and how it tends to be invested.
- Understanding the investment strategies of large defined contribution scheme providers.
- It will be vital also to explore the capacity of local authorities to engage with private sector pension funds.
The project benefited hugely from partnerships with the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Local Authority Pension Funds and Birmingham City Council.
Sadly, Kieran Quinn (then leader of Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and Chair of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund) died during the course of this project. This report is dedicated to Kieran, and his pioneering work on pension fund investments in Greater Manchester. A short article about Kieran’s work by Andy Rowe can be found below.
BUILD THE FUTURE
Andy Rowe. Former Project Manager to Cllr Kieran Quinn as Chair of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, and Leader of Tameside Council
I worked with Kieran Quinn for the last two years on developing a strategy to promote the work of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) and the pooling of pension funds in the North West, and wider across the UK. The former Chancellor George Osborne created a platform for UK Pension Funds to ‘pool’ their investment funds for possible infrastructure works and to work together.
Kieran and I discussed future plans for funds to play a much more active and visible role in infrastructure development on affordable housing and rail in the UK. He was a man of vision and lots of intellect. He thought through his project steps and he had many new ideas for outcomes and delivery.
There is nothing new in pension funds investing in infrastructure as the Australian, Canadian and American funds have demonstrated over the past 30 years, greatly benefiting the beneficiaries of these funds. Ranging from roads, bridges, schools, rail and station hubs the scope and scale of infrastructure opportunities are wide.
GLIL was one of the first infrastructure vehicle partnerships, established by the London Pension Fund Authority (LPFA) and GMPF in 2015. It arose from a conversation between Sir Merrick Cockell, Chair of the LPFA, and Kieran where both funds agreed to put in £500M each, which attracted other pension funds as the development progressed.
The fund has invested in infrastructure including a wind farm in Ayrshire, and the purchase of trains for Abellio.
Kieran’s philosophy included a social weave in the fund’s developments, not only to invest, and return a profit for the pensioners within the fund, but also to do some local and social good.
This could be manifested by local employment and training for apprentices on construction sites working on the fund’s projects. Kieran was seeking to draft a Construction Charter working with the trade unions to underpin this. As part of this thinking I researched and worked with the unions to jointly develop a Construction Charter that would uphold both the fund’s financial returns and benefit the workers on the sites.
Affordable housing was one of Kieran’s big projects. Having developed a working financial model (Matrix Homes) and built multiple plots of affordable homes for local people across Manchester in partnership with the Council, the Matrix model was ready to showcase to other Funds to build more affordable homes across the North West and Yorkshire. The model was flexible to adjust the financial model to suit different funds and councils and was ready to scale up with more partners.
Kieran was keen to get involved in infrastructure on rail and he had started a conversation on future rail and investment to utilise new technologies by talking to partners in Liverpool and Leeds.
Creating viable employment, investment in youth training and building the fund was all part of the strategic and promising reach he offered. Above all creating viable partnerships with other pension funds and working with the private sector as partners was the legacy that Kieran leaves behind.
*Disclaimer I do not now work for GMPF, or have any connection to their current strategy now, or in the future.
SPERI Paper 44 | New paper by Inga Rademacher on the legitimacy of tax cuts in the United States
We are very pleased to publish a new SPERI Paper by Dr Inga Rademacher. Dr Rademacher’s paper ‘Universality, market justice, wasteful government: the legitimacy of tax cuts on higher incomes in the United States 1981-2001’ aims to explain the impact of legitimation practices on the acceptance of heightened inequality in the US tax system.
The growing acceptance of neoliberal tax cuts, concessions in redistribution and increasing inequality among American policy makers since the 1980s is often ascribed to rising authority of the economics profession. But through content analysis the paper shows that the two largest tax cuts in American history, the Reagan tax cut in 1981 and the George W. Bush tax cut in 2001, only persisted when the Republican Party developed strong normative narratives of universality, market justice and wasteful government which pushed Democratic arguments in the cognitive realm. Dr Rademacher argues that this normative imbalance is the source of growing acceptance of neoliberalism and that the power of normative arguments is greater than the power of economic theory in legitimating inequality.
Dr Inga Rademacher is an Associate Lecturer for Political Economy at the Department for Politics and International Relations at Goldsmiths College; University of London. Her research explores American and German tax cuts for higher incomes since the 1980s with a particular focus on societal conflicts over the distribution of resources in times of productivity decline.
The Paper is available to download here. It is is the forty-fourth paper in out SPERI Paper series.
$2.5M funding awarded for global ‘Hidden Costs of Supply Chains’ project
Professor Genevieve LeBaron, co-director of SPERI, is part of an international team of researchers that has received $2.5M for a new seven-year research project ‘The Hidden Costs of Supply Chains: A Global Investigation’
The project, funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, will be led by Peter Klein at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Graduate School of Journalism in collaboration with journalism schools around the world; political economy and global governance scholars from five continents; Pulitzer Prize winning reporters and international media organisations
Professor LeBaron is a co-investigator in the partnership which will run until 2025. The other academic co-investigators include Ben Cashore (Yale), Claire Cutler (Victoria), Andrew Crane (Bath), Stefano Ponte (CBS), Peter Dauvergne (UBC), Jamie Peck (UBC), and Jennifer Clapp (Waterloo).
The goal of the project is to bring the hidden costs of global supply chains from the shadows into the mainstream – contributing new knowledge about the winners and losers within the global political economy, and highlighting critical pathways for policy intervention.
Through in-depth research investigation, reporting and original analysis, the project will examine key nodes of the supply chain: from production and manufacturing, to shipping and distribution through to final retail and consumption. All are thematically linked by questions of risk, value distribution and power that underpin the business, politics and economic geography supply chain governance literature. A Creative Commons archive library (housed at UBC) will facilitate the storage and exchange of gathered research and material towards future exploration and resolution of these critically under-reported stories.
Hidden Costs has will work with The New York Times, PBS FRONTLINE, Toronto Star, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, NBC News, and Smithsonian Channel. These partners will provide additional funding and support for reporting projects, and will distribute the content, which will include documentaries, newspaper series and digital projects.
The seven-year-long project will culminate in a travelling exhibit staged in two shipping containers – built in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada – which will travel around North America to key hubs of global commerce.
More information about the project can be found on the Global Reporting Centre here
The Global Business of Forced Labour | Major report by Professor Genevieve LeBaron published
Labour exploitation including forced labour is endemic at the base of global tea and cocoa supply chains. This is the conclusion of a pioneering international study published today by Professor Genevieve LeBaron, Co-Director of SPERI.
The two-year Global Business of Forced Labour study investigated the business models of forced labour in global tea and cocoa supply chains. Forced labour is work brought about by physical, psychological or economic coercion. Extensive on-the-ground research with the cocoa industry in Ghana and the tea industry in India revealed agricultural workers are paid severely low wages and are routinely subjected to multiple forms of exploitation. The project involved in-depth interviews with more than 120 tea and cocoa workers, a survey of over 1,000 tea and cocoa workers from 22 tea plantations in India and 74 cocoa communities in Ghana, and over 100 interviews with business and government actors.
The study also found that prominent ethical certification schemes are failing to create working environments that are free from exploitation and forced labour.
Genevieve LeBaron: “Tea and cocoa products are staple household items made and sold by some of the world’s largest brands. But at the base of the global supply chains that put these products on our shelves are highly exploited tea and cocoa workers who are routinely subjected to abuse and living far below the poverty line. The prevalence of forced labour in tea and cocoa supply chains should be a wake-up call for government, industry and auditors.”
The Report is available to download here. A series of policy briefs that provide targeted recommendations for policymakers, business, and certification organisations are also available to download here.
Key findings and statistics from the project include:
- There are widespread patterns of labour abuse in tea and cocoa supply chains feeding UK markets. Low prices and irresponsible sourcing practices create high profits for retail and brand firms but this creates a strong and systemic business ‘demand’ for cheap and forced labour.
- The project found evidence of abuse including: sexual violence; verbal abuse; threats of violence; threats of dismissal; debt bondage; the under-provision of legally mandated goods and services including housing, sanitation, water, food and medical care; non and under-payment of wages; and requirements to complete unpaid labour as a condition of employment.
- Employers profit from forced labour by using it to reduce the cost of business. The study finds evidence that employers in the tea industry systematically under-pay wages and under-provide legally-mandated essential services such as drinking water and toilets. In the cocoa industry employers cut costs by under-paying wages and creating situations of debt bondage.
- Although chocolate and tea companies are highly profitable, workers at the base of their supply chains live far below the poverty line. Tea workers’ wages in India are as low as 25 per cent of the poverty line amount and cocoa workers’ wages in Ghana are around 30 per cent of the poverty line amount.
- 40 per cent of tea workers within the study have had unfair deductions made from their wages.
- 47 per cent of tea workers within the study do not have access to water that is safe to drink.
- 23 per cent of cocoa workers within the study have performed work they were not paid for.
- 95 per cent of cocoa workers within the study did not know whether the farm they were working on was certified or not.
Tea and cocoa supply chains are covered by well-known ethical auditing and certification schemes which set standards for workers around basic services, fair treatment, wages and debt, health and safety, and workers’ rights. The research found that these schemes are failing to prevent labour exploitation and standards are routinely violated by employers.
The study included tea plantations certified by Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, Ethical Trade Partnership, and Trustea, and cocoa producers who are members of the Fairtrade and UTZ certified co-operative, Kuapa Kokoo.
In the tea industry little difference was found in labour standards, including wage levels, between certified and non-certified tea plantations, with certified plantations faring worse than non-certified plantations against some indicators of labour abuse and unfair treatment.
Workers reported they are instructed to alter their working practices to meet standards during audits by certifiers, but are then asked to revert to breaking standards the following day, suggesting that producers are cheating audits and inspections. In cocoa, 95 per cent of workers within the study did not know whether their worksite was certified or not. There is extensive confusion amongst producers about how certification operates and whether or not they were certified.
“The exploitation we document is not randomly occurring abuse by a few ‘bad apples’. Instead it is the result of structural dynamics of how global agricultural supply chains are organised.
“Highly profitable companies at the helm of these supply chains exert heavy price pressure on suppliers. This puts extreme pressure on tea and cocoa producers to cut costs and creates a business ‘demand’ for cheap, and sometimes forced labour.
“Ethical certification schemes are failing to tackle this demand. Some of the worst cases of exploitation documented within our research occurred on ethically certified plantations.
“To address the root cause of forced labour in global agricultural production, government, industry and workers’ organisation should ensure living wages are paid to all workers in supply chains, strengthen labour enforcement and involve workers in efforts to tackle forced labour.”
Professor Genevieve LeBaron, Co-Director of SPERI
“The world economy is more dangerous and less stable now than in 2008″ | Interview with Professor Colin Hay
Nearly ten years on from the global financial crisis of 2008, Colin Hay, SPERI co-director, and Tom Hunt, SPERI Policy Research Officer, have edited a book which provides a timely warning as to the dangers still present and building in the global economic system.
In The Coming Crisis (Palgrave, 2017) they draw on research on the political economy of growth, stagnation, austerity and crisis, placing each in the context of the wider environmental crisis.
Sciences Po where Colin is Professor of Political Science in the Centre d’études européennes recently published an interview with Colin about the book which is reposted here:
Q. Why this book? Haven’t elements been put in place to prevent a crisis similar to that of 2008?
One might hope so; but things are not quite so simple. When one analyzes the global economy in any detail, it is clear that very significant risks still exist. That is the simple conclusion of the fourteen leading political economists who have contributed to this work. Each chapter dissects the global political economy in a different way, uncovering and exposing the current sources of disequilibrium and instability.
Each contributor offers a distinct perspective on the symptoms of the present moment, reflecting and speculating on the extent to which the world economy has become more dangerous, and less stable, since 2008.
The book explores multiple dimensions of the coming crisis through issues such as the contagion effects of financial markets, secular stagnation, widening global inequality, the European migrant crisis, the Eurozone, China’s development and the ecological crisis.
Q. Isn’t it rather pessimistic to presume that we are the verge of another crisis?
Yes and no. To prepare ourselves for the possibility of a coming crisis certainly sounds pessimistic. But it can also be thought of as the very condition of any realistic optimism. It is better to be optimistic having considered the potential reasons for pessimism than to allow one’s optimism to prevent one from acknowledging the very possibility that there might be things to worry about in the first place. Put slightly differently, optimism sounds good, but optimism today is typically accompanied by a certain complacent naivety. Our aim in this book is, in effect, to stress test the characteristic optimism of mainstream economic approaches.
Q. What should we be worrying about?
It is at least credible to think that the world we live in today is a more dangerous place and is less stable systemically than it was in 2008. In the economies from which the contagion effects of the last crisis radiated outwards, there has been little if any ‘rebalancing’ of the domestic economy. Such economies remain stubbornly dependent on credit and an overgrown financial sector, with growth once again associated with alarming asset-price inflation.
And on a global stage there is little to lift the gloom. The period since 2008 is likely to be remembered as one in which the opportunity for global financial market re-regulation and genuine governance was missed. Our banks remain too big or too interconnected or too correlated in their behaviour to be allowed to fail and yet too big, too interconnected or too correlated to bail. What that means is that a second crisis has certainly not become less likely. And what we also know is that the capacity to deal with such a crisis has been significantly eroded by the nature of the public response to the first crisis – to the point where it is no longer clear what the response to a second crisis might now be.
Q. Are there new phenomena that add to the previous risks and our failure to address them?
Absolutely, especially in Europe. First there is ‘Brexit’ – a genuine threat not just for the British economy. If Ricardo taught us anything it is that a worsening of the terms of trade between partners hurts all parties. ‘Brexit’, in other words, may be self-inflicted but it is not a victimless crime. And ‘Brexit’ feels to us to be part of a wider dynamic – a tipping-point, perhaps, in which European integration starts to give way to a no less protracted but rather different process of European disintegration.
What is also clear – indeed, rather more clear (for very little about ‘Brexit’ is clear at this point) – is that austerity is ravaging Southern Europe and, in combination with the migration crisis, is contributing to the resurgence of a political right likely to accelerate the pace of European disintegration, not just economically but also socially.
Q. Why are phenomena such as migration in Europe or the ecological crisis creating economic risks?
Both pose not just economic risks, but risks of a more general kind – indeed, both might be thought of as profound humanitarian crises. These dwarf in a way their economic effects. But the economic risks of each are also considerable and should not be understated. Take the implications of the migrant crisis for Greece, for instance. Here, in a country already mired in economic crisis, suffering profoundly with the austerity imposed upon it, the migrant crisis has produced a flourishing of the informal, illegal and illicit economy, with major consequences both for the capacity of Greek institutions and the Greek economy to rebuild and for the deepening of social inequality. If anything the potential effects of the environmental crisis are more profound still – in that they are genuinely global and genuinely system threatening. The escalating costs of adaptation to, and compensation for, accelerating global environmental change alone threaten to push public spending and, above all, public indebtedness beyond what have already proved historically unprecedented and unsustainable levels. It is in this way that these crises are mutually reinforcing – ‘a perfect storm’, as we suggest.
Q. And how might we guard against these risks?
The book makes the case for a form of prospective precautionary thinking to anticipate and protect ourselves against a coming crisis. What is required is a change in mind-set and disposition. Instead of reassuring ourselves that we have entered a post-crisis period and are now on the road to recovery, we suggest that we should instead be looking out for the frailties and contradictions that remain within the system. We need to identify these and to start to build potential scenarios around them. The book starts to develop some of these, but its contribution is less to provide a definitive resolution of these issues than it is to re-focus thinking on the difficulty and necessity of the task that still remains. That might not sound very optimistic – and in a sense it is not. But it is, we feel, a necessary step in developing the kind of precautionary thinking that can best protect us from the risks present in the economic system. It is, in that way, a first step on the path from blithe and blinkered optimism to a more tempered realism.
The Coming Crisis, edited by Colin Hay and Tom Hunt
The Coming Crisis is available to purchase in hard copy and as an e-book. All of the book’s 14 chapters can each be individually bought.
Table of contents
- Introduction: The Coming Crisis, the Gathering Storm | Colin Hay and Tom Hunt
- We are Not in Kansas Anymore: Economic and Political Shocks | Helen Thompson
- On ‘the Other Crisis’: Diagnosing the Socio-Ecological Crisis | Martin Craig
- Stagflation and the Shackles of Market Discipline | Jeremy Green
- Can Global Governance Prevent the Coming Crisis? | Anthony Payne
- The Coming and Current Crisis of Indecent Work | Genevieve LeBaron
- The Coming Crisis of Planetary Instability | Peter Dauvergne
- The European Migrant Crisis and the Future of the European Project | Nicola Phillips
- The Paradox of Monetary Credibility | Jacqueline Best
- Enduring Imbalances in the Eurozone | Scott Lavery
- Systemic Stabilisation and a New Social Contract | Andrew Baker and Richard Murphy
- Secular Stagnation: The New Normal for the UK? | Jonathan Perraton
- China Crisis? | Matthew Bishop
- Conclusion: The Crisis Gets Political | Andrew Gamble
Flawed Capitalism | David Coates book launch at SPERI
On Monday May 14th SPERI is delighted to be hosting the UK launch for Professor David Coates’ new book Flawed Capitalism: The Anglo-American Condition and its Resolution, published by Agenda Publishing.
The launch will be held at ICOSS at the University of Sheffield between 5.00-7.00pm. A talk by David Coates (Professor of Anglo-American Studies, Wake Forest University, North Carolina) will be followed by audience discussion and a drinks reception from 6.15pm.
Click here to register your place
Drawing on over four decades of research and writing on the political economy of the UK and United States, Flawed Capitalism presents David Coates’ analysis of the Anglo-American condition and the social and economic crisis besetting both countries.
Charting the rise and fall of the social settlements that have shaped and defined the postwar years, Coates traces the history of the two economies. The book exposes the failings and shortcomings of the Reagan/Thatcher years, showing how the underlying fragility of a settlement based on the weakening of organized labour and the extensive deregulation of business culminated in the financial crisis of 2008.
Flawed Capitalism makes the case for the creation of a new transatlantic social settlement – a less flawed capitalism – one based on greater degrees of income equality and social justice.
Watch David discuss his new book here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUf0Tp8YOeg
“Anybody seeking to understand why Donald Trump is president and why the UK voted for Brexit should read David Coates’s important new book. It explains the flaws in the Anglo-Saxon economic model; even better, it suggests ways of putting things right.” – Larry Elliott, Economics Editor, The Guardian
“This excellent book not only shows us how the model of capitalism operating in the US and the UK is flawed, it also tells us why, through an original and engaging account of imperialist politics and ideological hubris in American and British statecraft. Coates’s writing combines both depth and breadth – a very rare feat – and this book deserves to be widely read.” – Craig Berry, SPERI, University of Sheffield
“With this provocative book and its bold examination of the past fifty years of political and economic change in the United States and the UK, David Coates makes an essential contribution to our understanding of the enormous challenges facing both sides of the Atlantic today. Beyond that, it lays bare the choices people and their leaders must make if future generations are to have a semblance of the opportunities we have had.” – Judy Woodruff, PBS NewsHour
Register at: https://flawedcapitalism_davidcoates.eventbrite.co.uk/
The rise and rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation | New SPERI Global Political Economy Brief
We are very pleased to publish a new SPERI Global Political Economy Brief on ‘The rise and rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation‘.
The Brief charts the development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and assesses how Russia and China have come together to cooperate on common geostrategic and geoeconomic goals for the long-term economic integration of Asia.
The new Brief by Rick Rowden, a doctoral researcher in the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, India, argues that the emergence – and steady rise – of the SCO marks an historic inflection point in international politics. Rowden concludes:
The rise of the SCO is symbolic of deeper underlying trend in which Asian regional powers are increasingly asserting ever greater economic and political control over the Asian mainland by establishing new international organisations that bypass the major Western led organisations that have dominated international politics since the mid- 20th Century. Their deepening economic integration and their stepped-up military cooperation suggest that tectonic shifts are underway in global geopolitics and that, in terms of relative power, the historic political and economic influence of the US is likely to be diminished.
Part I of the Brief discusses the origins of the SCO, including its military and economic goals. Part II discusses the China-Russia relationship, which served as the fulcrum for the establishment of the SCO. Part III discusses the recent expansion of the SCO to include both India and Pakistan and considers the likelihood of Iran and Turkey joining in the future.
The Brief is available to download here. It is is the eleventh publication in our Global Political Economy Brief series.
Should we put a price on carbon? | Public event on May 11th
Free panel discussion: Should we put a price on carbon?
Friday May 11th, 5.30-7.00pm
Lecture Theatre 6, The Diamond, University of Sheffield, S3 7RD
Registration is free and places can be booked here
Global carbon emissions must be urgently reduced. Almost all countries have agreed to do their part, but emissions continue to increase. So there is a pressing need to decide how we should deal with the problem.
SPERI has partnered with the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures to bring four excellent speakers to Sheffield to discuss one proposed solution: putting a price on carbon.
What is carbon pricing? Where has carbon pricing already been introduced, and has it been successful so far? What lessons can be learnt from any failures? What is the best way to price carbon? Who should bear the cost of paying and are there any drawbacks? Who should decide the price of carbon? How can carbon pricing be made acceptable to the public? And is pricing carbon even a good idea?
The speakers joining us at the event are
- Dr Maria Carvalho, policy analyst at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and The Environment.
- Larry Lohmann, campaigner and researcher based at The Corner House.
- Ross McKenzie, EU Public Affairs Manager, Drax.
- Dr Tina Fawcett, Senior Researcher and Acting Deputy Leader, ECI Energy Programme, Oxford University.
The event will be chaired by our very own Martin Craig.
More details can be found on the registration page here.
Raising the Bar pamphlet featuring SPERI’s Craig Berry launched in parliament
On Monday night SPERI’s Craig Berry spoke at the launch of Raising the Bar: How Household Incomes Can Grow the Way They Used To, a new pamphlet published by the Fabian Society, in the Houses of Parliament.
The pamphlet, available in full here, features Craig alongside Chi Onwurah MP (shadow industrial strategy minister), Anneliese Dodds MP (shadow Treasury minister), Rachel Reeves MP (chair of the energy, business and industrial strategy committee, Torsten Bell (director of the Resolution Foundation), Geoff Tily (senior economist at the TUC), John Mills (founder and chair of JML), Dustin Benton (director of the Green Alliance) and Özlem Onaran (director of Greenwich PERC).
Craig’s essay has also been published, in two parts, by SPERI Comment as ‘From capitalism grounded to grounded capitalism‘. As previously reported, Craig will be leaving SPERI to join the Manchester Metropolitan University business school next month.
New SPERI co-directors announced
A message from Professor Colin Hay
Dear colleagues and friends of SPERI,
I am really delighted to be able to announce some fantastic news about SPERI’s leadership.
Genevieve LeBaron and Adam Leaver have both been offered, and have both accepted, to join me as co-directors of SPERI, with immediate effect. You will find a short biopic of each below.
Given that both Genevieve and Adam have substantial on-going commitments, the months until September will be something of a transitional period. But during that time lots will be happening. We will be advertising a number of post-doctoral research fellowships and rejuvenating SPERI’s web presence, amongst other things.
This is a very important moment in SPERI’s development. I am exceptionally proud of what we have managed to achieve collectively in the six years since we were established, and now thoroughly confident that SPERI will grow from strength to strength in the years ahead. I really look forward to working with Adam and Genevieve in the months and years to come and would just like to thank them for the confidence they have shown already in SPERI in agreeing to take on such important roles in our collective project.
I would like to thank Tony Payne, without whom – of course – none of this would be possible. It has been my pleasure and privilege to work with Tony as co-director since SPERI’s founding. I would also like to take the chance to thank Craig Berry, our current Deputy Director, for his exceptional contribution to SPERI. Craig will be leaving us in May to take up a new post as Reader in Political Economy at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has been a pleasure and privilege to work with and will be greatly missed.
With all best wishes and with thanks for your continued support for and engagement with SPERI,
Colin Hay
Co-Director of SPERI
Adam Leaver
Adam Leaver joined the Sheffield University Management School in October 2017 as Professor of Accounting and Society. He is an ISRF Political Economy Research Fellow. Prior to arriving in Sheffield, Adam was Professor in Financialization and Management at the University of Manchester, and researcher at the Centre for Research In Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC).
His work is interdisciplinary, working at the intersection of critical accounting, political economy and management. He has published multiple co-authored books and articles on financialization and financial crisis and has a track record of publishing impactful public interest reports on financial sector reform.
Adam’s current research interests include: i) using social network analysis methods to map the social relationships that underlie certain complex securities markets; ii) developing a relational theory of the firm to understand the impact of financialization in the corporate sphere; iii) exploring the inter-temporal transfers and tensions that arise as a consequence of financialization; and iv) theorising the sociology of metric gaming in organisations.
Genevieve LeBaron
Genevieve LeBaron is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield. She is also Co-Chair of the Yale University Modern Day Slavery Working Group and an Editor of Review of International Political Economy.
Her research focuses on the political economy of the global labour market, including current research projects on the governance of transnational supply chains, the politics and effectiveness of corporate social responsibility, and the business models of forced labour.
In 2017, she was ranked the #1 academic (and #38 overall) on the global Top 100 Human Trafficking & Slavery Influence Leaders List, alongside leaders from the UK and US governments, Apple, Ford and the New York Times. In 2015, she was awarded the Rising Star Engagement Award from the British Academy in recognition of her contributions to research and policy-making on forced labour.
Genevieve currently holds grants from the UK Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy and UK Department for International Development. Her research has also attracted funding from the Ford Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the UK Economic and Social Research Council’s Global Challenges Research Fund, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, amongst other funders.
Genevieve is co-founder of openDemocracy.net’s Beyond Trafficking and Slavery. She has written for leading newspapers including The Guardian and Salon.com, and her research on forced labour has been profiled in Fortune Magazine, Forbes, and The Guardian, and has been cited widely in policy initiatives. She is a columnist for the United Nations’ knowledge platform Delta 8.7.
Prior to joining Sheffield, Genevieve was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia. She has also been a visiting scholar at the International Labour Organization in Geneva, the University of California, Berkeley, Osgoode Hall Law School, and Sciences Po. In 2015-2016, she was Yale University’s Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery Fellow.
OECD global conference on inclusive growth takes place in Parliament
Earlier this month the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Inclusive Growth hosted the OECD’s first ever global parliamentary conference on inclusive growth in the Houses of Parliament. SPERI is the research partner for the APPG. Tom Hunt, SPERI’s Policy Research Officer, led the organisation of the two-day conference.
Parliamentarians from 26 countries took part in the conference to debate new responses to growing global inequality. Along with the Secretary General of the OECD, Angel Gurria, and Chief of Staff, Gabriela Ramos, other speakers at the conference included Sacha Romanovitch, CEO of Grant Thornton; Sir Mike Rake, former Chairman of the CBI; Sue Garrard, executive vice-president of Unilever; Alison Tate, Director of Economic and Social Policy at the ITUC; the Right Reverend David Urquhart, Bishop of Birmingham; representatives from NESTA and the Cabinet Office – and the actor Michael Sheen, who has founded a new campaign to tackle high cost credit.
The parliamentarians discussed policies that can reconnect wealth creation with tackling inequalities and addressing social justice goals, how markets can empower citizens and reduce poverty and the role of parliamentarians in making these changes happen.
See all of the photos from the OECD conference here and download the presentations and speeches from the conference here. The APPG will hold follow-up events later in the year.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth is a cross-party group of parliamentarians that seeks to develop solutions for a more inclusive and more equal economy. The group is backed by a range of influential individuals and organisations across politics, business, trade unions, finance, churches and faith groups and civil society, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the City of London Corporation and Oxfam. Tom Hunt leads SPERI’s work with the APPG. For further information about the partnership contact Tom and sign up to receive news about the APPG at www.inclusivegrowth.co.uk
The rationale for local authority pension fund investment decisions | New SPERI report
A new report published today by SPERI assesses the rationale behind the strategic asset allocation of the UK’s largest local authority pension funds since the 2007/2008 financial crisis.
The analysis in this new SPERI British Political Economy Brief by Craig Berry and Adam Barber builds directly upon that of our previous Brief, Local Authority Pension Fund Investment Since the Financial Crisis, which charted changes in the investment patterns of pension funds between 2005 and 2016.
This Brief explores the basis of these changes, such as the move away from equity investment, and the partial move towards ‘alternative’ investments such as infrastructure. It also explores local authority pension fund (LAPF) attitudes towards further ‘pooling’; that is, the agenda, first developed by the Cameron government, to merge LAPFs into a small number of ‘mega-funds’
The full publication can be downloaded here. Through its series of British Political Economy Briefs, SPERI aims to draw upon the expertise of its academic researchers to influence the debate in the UK on sustainable economic recovery.
Hannah Lambie-Mumford appointed to new Food Standards Agency expert committee
Dr Hannah Lambie-Mumford, Research Fellow at SPERI, has been appointed as an expert member of the Food Standard Agency’s new independent Advisory Committee for Social Science.
The Advisory Committee for Social Science (ACSS) will be an independent, expert committee of the Food Standard Agency (FSA), providing strategic advice, including how the FSA can bring together different types of evidence, approaches and information on a multidisciplinary level to address and evaluate strategic problems. Recruitment for the new ACSS was carried out through open competition and Hannah has been appointed for an initial term of three years.
Hannah has undertaken research on food charity and food insecurity for funders including the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Find out more about her research here. In 2013-14 she was lead author of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) funded ‘review of food aid’. In June 2014 Hannah was awarded first prize for Outstanding Early Career Impact at the ESRC’s Celebrating Impact awards. Hannah sits on Child Poverty Action Group’s (CPAG) policy advisory committee. Her book Hungry Britain: The rise of food charity was published in 2017.
Professor Mick Moran (1946-2018)
We were deeply saddened to hear of the sudden and unexpected death earlier this week of Professor Mick Moran. Mick was an active member of SPERI’s International Advisory Board. He wrote blogs for SPERI Comment, spoke at our meetings, workshops and conferences, acted as referee for our book manuscripts and gave unstinting support to SPERI.
Mick was a distinguished authority on British government and politics, public policy and political economy. After a period at Manchester Polytechnic in the 1970s, he moved to the University of Manchester in 1979, was promoted to Professor in 1990 and stayed there all of the rest of his working life. Even after ‘retirement’ he continued working with an interdisciplinary group of friends and colleagues attached to CRESC in the Manchester Business School and contributed to their series of important analyses of the ‘Great British Financial Crisis’.
Mick wrote many important books during the course of his career. These included Governing the Health Care State (1999), The British Regulatory State (2003), Business, Politics and Society (2009) and Politics and Governance in the United Kingdom (2015, 3rd ed.). In 2017 he also published a wonderful overview of modern British politics, entitled tellingly The End of British Politics?
However, to everyone who knew him and worked with him, Mick was so much more than just a renowned and eminent professor. He was a constant and readily available source of advice, good and fair judgement, and wisdom. He gave his time unselfishly to colleagues, young and old, and was the very best that good citizenship in universities can offer.
The most sincere condolences from everyone at SPERI go to Mick’s wife, Winifred; his two sons, Liam and Joe; and his two grandchildren, Tom and Charlie.
Craig Berry wins prestigious British Academy rising star award
SPERI is delighted to announce that our deputy director Craig Berry has won a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award.
These awards are made to distinguished early career academics to enable engagement in career development through interdisciplinary projects.
Craig’s award builds upon his research on UK industrial strategy, and work on the Industrial Strategy Commission (which was nominated last week for a Guardian University Award). It will fund a project titled Industrial strategy and the transformation of British economic statecraft.
We extend our gratitude to all of those who supported Craig’s nomination and the proposed project, most notably Professor Nick Pearce at the University of Bath, Professor Matthew Watson at the University of Warwick, and SPERI’s Professor Andrew Gamble (who will act as a mentor for the project).
We are rather less delighted to report, however, that Craig will be leaving SPERI in May, to take up a new post as Reader in Political Economy at Manchester Metropolitan University. The project funded by this award will therefore be undertaken by Craig’s new home, Future Economies, in partnership with SPERI and the British Academy.